From two-trillion-degree heat, researchers create new matter -- and new questions

Mar 04, 2010

The diagram above is known as the 3-D chart of the nuclides. The familiar Periodic Table arranges the elements according to their atomic number, Z, which determines the chemical properties of each element. Physicists are also concerned with the N axis, which gives the number of neutrons in the nucleus. The third axis represents strangeness, S, which is zero for all naturally occurring matter, but could be non-zero in the core of collapsed stars. Antinuclei lie at negative Z and N in the above chart, and the newly discovered antinucleus (magenta) now extends the 3-D chart into the new region of strange antimatter.

(PhysOrg.com) -- A worldwide team of researchers have for the first time created a particle that is believed to have been in existence immediately after the creation of the universe - the so-called "Big Bang" - and it could lead to new questions and answers about some of the basic laws of physics because in essence, it creates a new form of matter.

An international team of scientists studying high-energy collisions of gold ions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a 2.4-mile-circumference particle accelerator located at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, has published evidence of the most massive antinucleus discovered to date. The new antinucleus, discovered at RHIC’s STAR detector, is a negatively charged state of antimatter containing an antiproton, an antineutron, and an anti-Lambda particle. It is also the first antinucleus containing an anti-strange quark. The results will be published online by Science Express on March 4, 2010.

“This experimental discovery may have unprecedented consequences for our view of the world,” commented theoretical physicist Horst Stoecker, Vice President of the Helmholtz Association of German National Laboratories. “This antimatter pushes open the door to new dimensions in the nuclear chart — an idea that just a few years ago, would have been viewed as impossible.”

The discovery may help elucidate models of neutron stars and opens up exploration of fundamental asymmetries in the early universe.

The Solenoidal Tracker at RHIC (STAR) is a detector which specializes in tracking the thousands of particles produced by each ion collision. The massive unit weighs 1,200 tons and is as large as a house. Credit: Photo courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory.

New nuclear terrain

All terrestrial nuclei are made of protons and neutrons (which in turn contain only up and down quarks). The standard Periodic Table of Elements is arranged according to the number of protons, which determine each element’s chemical properties. Physicists use a more complex, three-dimensional chart to also convey information on the number of neutrons, which may change in different isotopes of the same element, and a quantum number known as “strangeness,” which depends on the presence of strange quarks (see diagram). Nuclei containing one or more strange quarks are called hypernuclei.

For all ordinary matter, with no strange quarks, the strangeness value is zero and the chart is flat. Hypernuclei appear above the plane of the chart. The new discovery of strange antimatter with an antistrange quark (an antihypernucleus) marks the first entry below the plane.

This study of the new antihypernucleus also yields a valuable sample of normal hypernuclei, and has implications for our understanding of the structure of collapsed stars.

“The strangeness value could be non-zero in the core of collapsed stars,” said Jinhui Chen, one of the lead authors, a postdoctoral researcher at Kent State University and currently a staff scientist at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, “so the present measurements at RHIC will help us distinguish between models that describe these exotic states of matter.”

The findings also pave the way towards exploring violations of fundamental symmetries between matter and antimatter that occurred in the early universe, making possible the very existence of our world.

Collisions at RHIC fleetingly produce conditions that existed a few microseconds after the Big Bang, which scientists believe gave birth to the universe as we know it some 13.7 billion years ago. In both nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC and in the Big Bang, quarks and antiquarks emerge with equal abundance. At RHIC, among the collision fragments that survive to the final state, matter and antimatter are still close to equally abundant, even in the case of the relatively complex antinucleus and its normal-matter partner featured in the present study. In contrast, antimatter appears to be largely absent from the present-day universe.

“Understanding precisely how and why there’s a predominance of matter over antimatter remains a major unsolved problem of physics,” said Brookhaven physicist Zhangbu Xu, another one of the lead authors. “A solution will require measurements of subtle deviations from perfect symmetry between matter and antimatter, and there are good prospects for future antimatter measurements at RHIC to address this key issue.”

In a single collision of gold nuclei at RHIC, many hundreds of particles are emitted most created from the quantum vacuum via the conversion of energy into mass in accordance with Einsteins famous equation E = mc2. The particles leave telltale tracks in the STAR detector (shown here from the end and side). Scientists analyzed about a hundred million collisions to spot the new antinuclei, identified via their characteristic decay into a light isotope of antihelium and a positive pi-meson. Altogether, 70 examples of the new antinucleus were found.

The STAR team has found that the rate at which their heaviest antinucleus is produced is consistent with expectations based on a statistical collection of antiquarks from the soup of quarks and antiquarks generated in RHIC collisions. Extrapolating from this result, the experimenters believe they should be able to discover even heavier antinuclei in upcoming collider running periods. Theoretical physicist Stoecker and his team have predicted that strange nuclei around double the mass of the newly discovered state should be particularly stable.

RHIC’s STAR collaboration is now poised to resume antimatter studies with greatly enhanced capabilities. The scientists expect to increase their data by about a factor of 10 in the next few years.

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Most people, at some point in their lives, have dreamt of being able to fly like Superman or develop superhuman strength like the Hulk. But very few know that we human beings have a "superpower" of our own, ...

Who are you? I was eating breakfast one minute and then all of the sudden >>>>whoosh!! Suddenly now I'm here on a different world without global warming (sorry climate change),,,,,We all told the folks at CERN something could go wrong if they proceeded to keep shooting those teensie tiny little gold clusters at one another.....The good news is that CO2 is still wreaking havoc back in Al Gores universe...I can still hear the echo of all the carbon taxes jingling as they fill the UN coffers.

Mater is just another form of energy...that is what the famous equation says. There is no conservation of either normal energy or mater energy...they can and do move from one side to the other. We don't see it in chemistry but in radioactivity, smashers, and in star cores we defiantly have mater disappear or appear in exchange with energy.

People here have such an elementary view of physics. The total energy does indeed change, which is the only reason particles are "popped out" of the vacuum. For a very tiny fraction of a second immediately after the collision, there is orders of magnitude more energy than there was immediately before the collision. Indeed, the only reason particle decays can occur is because energy is NOT STRICTLY conserved. In the limit of large time, however, (like more than a microsecond) energy IS conserved.

dtxx

Kaons (K+=us~; K0=ds~) are byproducts, occurring at the time of proton (p=uud) and neutron (n=udd) capture by strange matter N(uds): N(uds) + p = (N+1)(uds) + K+ = (N+1)(uds) + e+ + 500 MeV. (N+1)(uds) + n = (N+2)(uds) + K0 = (N+2)(uds) + 500 MeV. The value 500 TeV, as a binding energy of (uds) in a strangelet N(uds), can easily be received from comparison with the rest energy of kaons K+ and K0, which are correspondingly 493 MeV and 497 MeV. The binding energy of one lambda in big strange nucleus is about 500 MeV/c^2. That means that strange nucleus can grow transforming usual nuclei into strange ones. At the time of November-December collisions there were more Kaons output that it was theoretically predicted. That means that we are very close to creation of strange crystal, which will kill all of us: p + p + 2*3.5 TeV = 6000(usd) + 6000(u~s~d~). The whole Earth will be transformed into dense cloud of strangelets in a fraction of second. http://www.iop.or...99/35/6/

But this is a thinking of Hitler, Stalin or Kim-Ir-Sen, who were willing to sacrifice whole world in nuclear catastrophe for a bit of his success..? I don't see any responsibility for terrestrial life and the rest of world here.

But this is a thinking of Hitler, Stalin or Kim-Ir-Sen, who were willing to sacrifice whole world in nuclear catastrophe for a bit of his success..? I don't see any responsibility for terrestrial life and the rest of world here.

Certainly seneca - perhaps we should riot as did the very sensible people in Europe when there was a change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. They lost a couple of weeks in that move and were righteously indignant.

I predict that if they atempt to smash lead atoms into large lead target they can create a critical mass liverating huge ammounts of positrons spliting lead atoms to IRON ones upon decay in a chain reaction ...

I forgot to add the resulting reaction will be alike huge nuclear detonation resulting in destruction of machine and a large destruction radius, being the positronic radiation lethal in nature to all life.

Lead has many isotopes but 4 stable ones. The 4 stable isotopes are 204Pb, 206Pb, 207Pb and 208Pb with 204Pb regarded as primordial lead and 206, 207, 208 are formed from decay of uranium and thorium. The one common radiogenic isotope, 202Pb, has a half-life of approximately 53,000 years.[1]

Can decay to iron isotopes:

Iron-56 is the most common isotope of iron. About 91.754% of all iron is iron-56and Iron-55 (lighter) isotope .

If we assume a rate of lead nuclei collisions in the LHC of 10,000,000 per second (probably a fairly high estimate), this translates to (at 1000TeV per collision) a power of 1.6kW. That's... a little smaller than the power output of a nuclear detonation.

As speed is increased so is mass (a single super dense atom can initiate a critical mass in a relative (standing still mass) as superluminal speed equates time reduction matter, Relative time can be accelerated were E = M x (TxT) resulting in a critical mass being converted to energy .

E = M(CxC) and M = (CxC)/(t/t) were Time aspect is taken into the erred Einstein equation to reverse it converting energy to mater from density level 1(empty space noise energy) to 4096 (black hole density ) exponential, (Add the strings to it ). Time as a variable was left out when thinking in relativistic superluminal collisions.

Is the lead lining from the machine traveling at light speed or is the particle ? in relative time who goes critical first the target or the sub-mass projectile ?

In this case the projectile provides the near infinite mass were the target provides the sub critical mass .

I am fairly certain no matter was created, considering a certain law regarding conservation...

E=Mc2. Remember that one? The law states that matter AND energy is conserved. Energy is produced all the time (the sun) but matter is consumed. Matter is produced all the time as well, but energy is consumed.

We will know as when machine goes critical or not,article is not up to date in certain aspects but no less valid when aplied to biological transmutation of elements in the lab .

Water can be transmuted to neon atom and neon can be extracted from pure water chemicaly made from pure hydrogen and oxigen . Were it came from ? (natural fusion ) to S.I. 21 what ancients called "fire element" within the water . be sure students will not be teached that in any university , maybe if they end working in area 4 or area 51 they can get a bit of real technology.

What is the frequency of a traped photon in an standing wave within a cavity ?

(There is the answer) and Hawkings Stole the "Hawking Radiation" Idea from a post inSafati forum were I posted Black holes were mater to energy transformation engines.

He called me an idiot and I called him a donkey orifice in a wheel chair and I was booted out.

But fact remains I was first to post black holes "evaporate" by polar emmision of energy and particulates, and was first to post the red shift is due to gravitational slow down of light and that light can be slowed by black hole gravity and emmited as radio signal as if it were a signal delay circuit. (no cosmic expansion)

To end this post (It was Einstein wife who gave Einstein the formulas ) and he corrupted them .

To prove a black hole radio signal is a gravity delayed light emmision is easy, it will carry the same spectra signatures and can be analized using radio spectrum analizers to get specific composition of black holes as if it were lower harmonics of light, Absorved lines will reflect also in light slowed down to radio spectrum signature .

Back to "The Machine" I see Hackers can be more danger to it if they redirect a beam of heavy ions to a lead target or shield resulting in the critical mass I have predicted with LEAD Pb element . "To me is history to you is the future"

Can the future be altered ?

can someone prevent "Saturns gold" from turning to Iron?

What was Nostradamus Word for Positron radiation?Raypoz ? (positive ray ? ) I was recently taken atention toward this "casuality" as I was emailed about Nostradamus predictions on Geneva future.

(interesting) Saturns Gold in old days meant objects of SATANIC worship made of "lead" metalusualy the medieval lead was pb206 that can be identified as "Saturns Gold" and Nostradamus predicted it, made into IRON (fission?) being Raypoz destroyer of all (positron radiation?)

So nothing is lost taking mitigation measures.Hector :)

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